When I was a kid, I loved Star Wars. As an adult, the only one that I find watchable is The Empire Strikes Back and that is largely due to the efforts of Irvin Kershner. It is by far heads and shoulders above everything else in that series.

I think what Disney fails to realize is that what made the original trilogy so popular at its initial release has become commonplace on TV today. Epic sci fi, awesome special effects, and overarching story arcs that don't have to be resolved in 30 minutes or less can now be found outside the efforts of a movie studio. The Expanse immediately springs to my mind and I find that to be a superior product to anything Star Wars has done in the last 30 years.

NKD wrote on Nov 9, 2017, 23:59:I'm confused as to how the original Star Wars trilogy has gotten this reputation as some kind of masterpiece. It's certainly a very fun, very enjoyable set of movies, but it's fast food film designed to sell toys.

But people complain and act like it's gone downhill when it's just doing what it's always done...tell a somewhat by-the-numbers story with cool visual effects and lots of merchandise potential.

That's not really meant as a criticism of Star Wars, though. Not everything has to be some pretentious intellectual circlejerk. Lots of people love Star Wars, including me.

You owe it to yourself to watch at least part of Red Letter Media's takedown of the Phantom Menace. In it, he compares and contrasts with the original Star Wars movie showing how the characters, plot, arc, etc. are so much superior in the original film from a structural viewpoint. Many, but not all, of the deficiencies can be applied to this new crop of Star Wars films that exist in TPM.

RLM videos are also highly entertaining.

If Star Citizen was a child conceived in a night of passion, it would have started elementary school by now. -panbient

NKD wrote on Nov 9, 2017, 23:59:I'm confused as to how the original Star Wars trilogy has gotten this reputation as some kind of masterpiece. It's certainly a very fun, very enjoyable set of movies, but it's fast food film designed to sell toys.

But people complain and act like it's gone downhill when it's just doing what it's always done...tell a somewhat by-the-numbers story with cool visual effects and lots of merchandise potential.

That's not really meant as a criticism of Star Wars, though. Not everything has to be some pretentious intellectual circlejerk. Lots of people love Star Wars, including me.

sorry but your understanding of star wars is woefully insufficient. the original trilogy was so much more than just by-the-numbers story telling; it's sad you think that because you've missed out on 90% of the experience if that's all you saw. it's no accident that myself and most other scifi nerds rank Empire one of hte greatest films of all time, not just star wars films.

I'm confused as to how the original Star Wars trilogy has gotten this reputation as some kind of masterpiece. It's certainly a very fun, very enjoyable set of movies, but it's fast food film designed to sell toys.

But people complain and act like it's gone downhill when it's just doing what it's always done...tell a somewhat by-the-numbers story with cool visual effects and lots of merchandise potential.

That's not really meant as a criticism of Star Wars, though. Not everything has to be some pretentious intellectual circlejerk. Lots of people love Star Wars, including me.

I don't understand how they can fuck up Star Wars movies so badly, when there has been plenty of great writing in the comics, and most of the cartoons.

Clone Wars, the non-cgi original series and the cgi series, excellent writing, great characters for the most part, very interesting and really expanded on the idea of Jedi powers.

But somehow whenever they go live action, it turns into a complete mess. Too much money involved or something? I don't even get it. The new trilogy at least has some amazing acting talent, but I'm dreading the release of episode 8... I can tell it's just going to piss me off.

With the exception of Empire I've always agreed with Sir Alec that SW is horrible tripe that's only gotten progressively worse and exists solely as a vehicle to sell merchandise.

Most of the books have been pretty bad too with the noted exception of the Thrawn books. Now that should be mace into a TV series. Also the Tales short stories would work well like Tales of the Bounty Hunters.